THE DEEP VOICE belonged to Detective Walker. He strolled around the room and studied the sticky notes below each suspect.
“You did this?” he asked Penny.
Penny nodded. “With JJ and this girl Emma who lives here.”
“Well done, kids.”
Penny said, “Thanks. How did you find this room, Grandpa?”
Detective Walker smiled. “You’re not the only one with detective skills, you know.”
“You followed me?”
“Correct.” The detective walked past the suspect list again and stopped by the extra clues page. “Do you have a pen?”
Penny nodded and handed the detective one.
Con man Gerrit Hofstra, Detective Walker wrote on a sticky note. Before JJ or Penny could ask, he said, “I spoke with my old partner last night. She mentioned that there were reports that this con man moved to the Aspen Springs area.”
“You’re investigating, Grandpa?” Penny asked with a smile.
Detective Walker grumbled, then said, “Just for this murder case. And maybe more from the sidelines. It sounds like I’m needed, so I’ll come out of retirement for the weekend. But you kids seem to have most of it covered.” The truth was that being a detective was like dodgeball: you were either in it or you weren’t.
“Could this Gerrit guy have killed Mr. Barclay?” JJ asked. Another suspect could mean his mom was off the hook.
“We don’t know if it’s related,” Detective Walker said. “But it’s worth considering. This con man stole millions from rich people. Since Mr. Barclay was very wealthy . . .” Gerrit Hofstra could have killed Mr. Barclay and stolen his money.
“Is he in town? Did he come to the hotel?” Penny asked.
“I haven’t seen him,” the detective said. “Could be that this is a red herring—you know what that is?”
Penny nodded, since she’d read her share of mysteries. But JJ shook his head.
“A red herring is a false clue. Information that distracts you from who the real killer is,” Detective Walker said. He walked along the evidence wall. “Something is off about this.”
“Off?”
“There’s a big puzzle piece missing.” Detective Walker sighed.
“I thought the same thing,” Penny said.
Detective Walker said, “When I investigate—or investigated—a crime, and the evidence wasn’t adding up, I would look back at who started it all.”
Penny and JJ looked confused. This was a big crash course in detective work.
“The victim. Maybe the puzzle piece that’s missing is Mr. Barclay himself.”
DETECTIVE WALKER LEFT after telling Penny to check in with him at lunch. He was going for a morning dip in the pool.
“Let’s first interview the chef,” Penny said.
JJ agreed. “If Emma doesn’t get to him first.”
There were still breakfast smells wafting from the double doors that went into the commercial kitchen.
They found the chef cleaning a griddle. He looked angry.
“Hello?” JJ called. You don’t want to scare someone who is working in the kitchen.
The chef looked up. “Yes?”
“I’m JJ. Mrs. Jacobson’s son?”
“I’m Penny,” Penny added.
The chef nodded. He seemed to remember that he was upset and continued scraping the large griddle. “Ah, oui. I’m Dominique Pierre, but everyone just calls me Chef Pierre,” the chef said in a heavy French accent. “Did you get your breakfast?”
“It was great, thank you.” JJ sat down at the small table on a wobbly old chair.
Penny did too. It wasn’t until she sat that she realized that this was probably where Mr. Barclay sat and ate his cupcake, right before he died.
Penny was a little weirded out by this fact, so she sprang up again and decided to just stand for this interview.
Pierre noticed, and remembered too. “Oh, mon dieu. If only I had—” He stopped himself and shook his head. “Non. The police will come, of course, when the snow stops falling. But I cook until the end—that’s what Mr. Barclay wanted.”
“Were you here when Mr. Barclay . . . ?” Penny couldn’t get herself to say was poisoned or kicked the bucket. It was all a little too real to think that the man dropped dead right here, in this kitchen.
“I will not talk about it,” Pierre said resolutely.
This was not going how they’d planned.
JJ turned to face Chef Pierre. Why didn’t he want to talk about it? JJ could only think of one reason.
JJ said to the chef, “Is that because you have a secret to hide too?”